ESA to Define Long-Term Space Exploration Strategy

December 28, 2006
Source: ESA

On January 8 and 9, 2007, in the historic city of Edinburgh, Scotland, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the British National Space Center (BNSC) will hold a workshop to kick off the first in a series of consultations with key stakeholders. The aim is to define the European long-term strategy for space exploration and set the scene for decisions to be made at the ministerial level ESA Council meeting scheduled for 2008.

ESA has been working on the Aurora program as a framework for space exploration for several years, and aims to make space exploration a global and societal project. Representatives of four stakeholder communities — scientific, political and institutional, industrial and innovation-related, and general public — from all around Europe and worldwide will gather in Edinburgh. They will be given a presentation of the current and future ESA plans and discuss a compelling rationale for Europe to play a significant role in the global space exploration endeavor.

Subsequent to NASA’s unveiling of its lunar exploration architecture on December 4, ESA will define a broader scenario that will include the Moon as an important exploration target and an unavoidable stepping stone for the human exploration of further space destinations. European space exploration architectures will be derived from these scenarios, taking into account the industrial, scientific, and societal interests expressed by the stakeholders in consultations such as the one in Edinburgh. Based on these architectures and driven by the primary European priorities, ESA will be participating with other international partners in this decades-long undertaking of robotic and human exploration of the solar system.

The outcome of the ESA/BNSC European Exploration Workshop will be debated in a press conference on January 10. There, the results of the workshop — particularly the European priorities and drivers — will be presented by leading figures of the scientific, political and institutional, and industrial and innovation communities.

For further information, contact Piero Messina of the Coordination Office/Directorate of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration Program (phone: 33-6-87-71-51-26; e-mail: Piero.Messina@esa.int). Media inquiries should be directed to media@esa.int.